The Fair Maid of Perth

erto been made to sketch their manners, as these might be supposed to have existed at the period when the statute book, as well as the page of the chronicler, begins to present constant evidence of th

the daring loftiness to which some of the remo

to mark with equal distinctness the rancour of these mountain feuds and the degraded condition of the general government of the country; and it was fixed upon accordingly as the point on which the main incidents of a romantic narrative might be made to hinge. The char

might have been easily dealt with, had a ludicrous style of colouring been adopted; but it appeared to the Author that there would be more of novelty, as well as of serious interest, if he could succeed in gaining for him something of that sympathy which is incompatible with the total absence of respect. Miss Baillie had drawn a coward by natu

tted in the early narratives of the occurrence. He on one occasion brought four thousand of his clan to the aid of the royal banner against the Lord of the Isles. This historian is of opinion that the Clan Quhele of Wyntoun were the Camerons, who appear to have about that period been often designated as Macewans, and to have gained much more recently the name of Cameron, i.e. Wrynose, from a blemish in the physiognomy of some heroic chief of the line of Lochiel. This view of the case is also adopted by Douglas in his Baronage, where he frequently mentions the bitter feuds between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, and identifies the latter sept in reference to the events of 1396, with the Camerons. It is perhaps impossible to clear up thoroughly

sed to have Wyntoun's origina

and thre

sex to mak

or wyld Sc

gane thre

bolnit of

the cruelty o

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core ware

whewyl and

a kynnis w

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ai had than

ris' son wes

r Cristy

thing be th

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entrit in

nd ax, kny

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aid on that

e ware thar

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llantry of the Perth artisan, in offering to take a share in the conflict. Both incidents, however, were i

North insulam de Perth, coram rege et gubernatore et innumerabili multitudine comparentes, conflictum acerrimum inierunt; ubi de sexaginta interfecti sunt omnes, excepto uno ex parte Clankay et undecim exceptis ex parte altera. Hoc etiam ibi accidit, quod omnes in procinctu belli constituti, unus eorum locum diffugii considerans, inter omnes in amnem elabitur, et aquam de Thaya natando transgreditur; a millenis insequitur, sed nusquam apprehenditur. Stant igitur partes attonitae, tanquam non ad conflictum progressuri, ob defectum evasi: noluit enim pars integrum habens numerum sociorum consentire, ut unus de suis demeretur; nec potuit pars altera quocumque pretio alterum ad supplendum vicem fugientis inducere. Stupent igitur omnes haerentes, de damno fugitivi conquerentes. Et cum totum illud opus cessare putaretur, ecce in medio prorupit unus stipulosus vernaculus, statura modicus, sed efferus, dicens: Ecce ego! quis me conducet intrare cum operariis istis a

oece and Leslie, and the contending savages in Buchanan

le of Inverkeithing, between the Royalists and Oliver Cromwell's troops, a foster father and seven brave sons are known to have thus sacrificed themselves for Sir Hector Maclean of Duart; t

Stewart of Garth, in his account of the battle of Killiecrankie, informs

, saw him lying on his back with his breast pierced by an arrow. He had hardly breath, before he expired, to tell Lochiel that, seeing an enemy, a Highlander in General Mackay's army, aiming at him with a bow and arrow, he sprung be

f the Canongate, with the chapter introductory which prece

RD, Aug.